The Queen of Versailles

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You have to laff when the "Queen"--often seemingly desperate to kiss her AH husband into some sort of affectionate submission (she always fails to receive anything other than an aggressively polite peck, which seems more like a 'kiss-off')-- the "Queen" plays the victim card, due to the financial upheaval in 2008. She's truly sickening, despite her "humble" roots. Were these pigs ever in real jeopardy? Well, their "conspicuous consumption, had to be "downsized" from poisonous excess to sheer madness, and meanwhile, the wonderful housekeeper has suffered and struggled to meet her own dreams--and you get the feeling she's cast her lot in with the wrong people. Fascinating and disgusting, see it.

After reading the top 2 IMDb reviews for this documentary using words like "appalling", "revolting", "tasteless", "classless" and everything short of "Nazi" to describe the subjects, I figured this would be a fun way to forget my own financial inadequacies by relishing in the multi-million dollar tragedy of a bunch of monsters who deserve to suck slime. So with that in mind I poured myself a cup of fresh blood and got my vampire on. Immediately I was "disappointed" because, aside from having a pair of ivory tusks displayed in their living room, these people didn't display anything worthy of being flogged publicly as I was led to believe. Sure, their lifestyle was extravagant to a fault. But, ask any third-world kid who can't afford a pair of shoes, and you'll learn that extravagance is relative. No matter, thought I, wiping some drool off my non-designer jeans, this show is just getting started; I'm sure they'll spit on a few beggars in good time! Actually quite the opposite. As the family begins to realize it's financial decay, instead of telling the laid-off employees to eat cake, Jackie actually started donating goods and volunteering at a local charity for their benefit. Aw man, way to kill a good feeding frenzy, thought I. Well, at least I can still hate her for all the excessive cosmetic treatments she keeps getting for her own vanity. Oops, wrong again. Those of us paying attention soon realize that she's not doing it for sheer vanity's sake but to try to please her husband as psychologically she seems insecure in that department. And as we learn more about the titular Queen of Versailles, we see many parallels between her and the other unfortunate queen, Marie Antoinette in her paper mâché marriage to Louis XVI. Yes, the interpersonal drama runs thick, between all family members in different ways. And just as the French eventually realized that they maybe went a little too far with that whole guillotine thing, you see that the Siegels, while guilty of clueless indulgence yes, don't nevessarily deserve to get their financial heads lopped off. These people are not aberrations of humankind as you'd been led to believe by some reviews, but instead, this is the story of a normal American family that has been subjected to abnormal extremes. True, the husband (a man of 1 emotion: stoic), did at one point talk about how he personally got Bush re-elected by means that "may not have been legal", but he immediately counters it with "but then we got involved in this Iraqi War, so maybe I didn't do that much good after all." That statement is the key to understanding this powerful documentary. It is NOT a spectacle of seeing Emperors thrown to the lions. Rather, it is a very Faustian tale of pride and arrogance that gets the best of humans, and humans eventually accepting or at least admitting to the possibility that they were wrong. I'm talking about all humans, not just these people. I have to hand it to the tragic family for bearing their downfall much more nobly than their rise. In the end (especially after watching the deleted scenes showing more of their human side), I felt good--not because I had just witnessed a gruesome car crash like other viewers, but because these people (except maybe 1 individual? I won't spoil) had all evolved into something better. In that respect, this is a very complex story which requires your full attention. It's not like a sporting event that has 1 good guy, 1 bad guy and 1 outcome. It's really one of the best illustrations of pride under pressure. And although my greatest financial hurdle consists of how to pay my $75 parking ticket, I can somehow associate with these ex-billionaires on how money, and lack thereof, changes us all.

I especially loved this lady, the queen, her majesty, she exuded a kind of lovingly forlorn quality of poor little rich girl. Really a sweetheart. So refreshing to see no false shame about being filthy rich, just a matter of fact attitude about it and I believed her when she said she'd be just as happy living in a shack. Dog turds on the floor, grimy kids lounging in the living room, hey it's just like on our side of the tracks after all! The husband, well, he was slightly harder to warm up to but in the end I could relate to his life too. Just a frustrated old guy with too many needy clingers-on all over the place that he was responsible for. All in all these are my kind of people, very much the type I'd love to be hobnobbing with.

You couldn't write a screenplay like this if you tried. Sometimes the best source of drama is reality itself, and "The Queen of Versailles" offers plenty of interesting odd situations. Some of the scenes can only be classified as absurd, as we can only sit there and witness the extravagant maneuvers made by the Siegel family. I went in to see how anyone could come up with rather impractical idea of "replicating", in a loose way, Versailles in America. The director gives us a good introduction where we can imagine how these wealthy people can believe such plans are possible. We learn about their backgrounds, and how Mr. Siegel seems to have plenty of capital to treat himself to that real estate dream. Along comes his third Mrs., and she's a more interesting woman than I thought she could be. She appears intelligent, loving, a bit lost in her dream world as she takes cares of her personal whims and manages to at least be aware of her family. She seems to be honest about who she was, who she is, and we even believe she hasn't lost her connections to what really matters. The problem is she doesn't truly understand reality changes around her until it is a bit too late. There are plenty of memorable scenes in the film, and it is the intimate moments inside their home that make us notice and care about what is happening to them. At first we are voyeurs because these are real people, and in an era of "reality TV", we want to see how crazy and extravagant this family is. As the film progresses, we are see that not everyone here is as disconnected as the Mrs. We get testimony from the nannies who can see this is not a happy household. There is an army of employees and nannies, so we know communication is broken. We hear about a child who prefers to sleep with a person who gives him the attention his parents are not providing. We know that when these servants disappear, there will be some critical exchanges between a few of the members of the family. It is after the financial crisis begins and deepens that we start being enveloped by the darkness that closes in around the household. We see how their resources become limited and disappear, and some of the scenes are hilarious. You can't help but chuckle as the inquires about the drivers at the car rental place, and the discovery of the unattended pets is horrible but still manages to elicit a laugh because it is so unbelievable. The film offers some hard truths many won't like to hear, and it might be more than a journey through the lives of a wealthy family that has its rude awakening. The documentary crew shows us the connection of these people to mere mortals like us, and it is there when it becomes chilling because if it happens to them, it might also happen to anyone. "Versailles" deserves a viewing since it is a reflection of the times, and truth might not always be pretty.

The Queen of Versailles (2012) **** (out of 4) Rather remarkable documentary about timeshare billionaire David Siegel and his wife Jackie who both find themselves building a $100-million dollar home just as the 2008 financial collapse happens. This documentary shows their rise to the top but sudden fall from grace as they find their business going away and being forced to lay off thousands. I used the word "remarkable" earlier and I say that because I was really shocked at the quality of this film for a couple reasons. For starters, director Lauren Greenfield makes us care for this spoiled people and this here is something that I really didn't expect. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how open the documentary and the two main people were. I think most people will be able to respect and enjoy David because he really does seem like a good guy who built this empire through hard work. Jackie, on the other hand, just seems like an incredibly spoiled person and just check out the Christmas sequence where the family is broke yet she goes out and buys a ton of gifts including a bike even though the garage is full of them. Even though she does some incredibly stupid things, I must say that I enjoyed watching her throughout the events of this film. There's no question that the bad economy has effected people in countless ways. Most of the time these documentaries taking a look at the working class people so it was certainly interesting seeing those at the top and seeing how far they end up falling. The documentary does an incredibly good job not only looking at this family but also some of the people around them that have had their money taken from them. This includes various servants that the Siegel's employed and even their limo driver. There's no question that this lifestyle is something most won't ever get to enjoy but there are some pretty dark times here that we won't experience either.

I "officially" rated this movie low after reading so many highly-scored reviews that included all sorts of carping about these supposedly bad and disgusting people. My low score continues this non-sequitur as a contrarian protest to those judgments. I actually loved seeing regular average, run-of-the-mill, semi-dysfunctional people do what regular average, run-of-the-mill, semi-dysfunctional people do: buy happiness with stuff. In short I absolutely loved the film because 3/4 of America would fill giant houses with cheap crap expensive decor if provided the same means of extravagance. Bottom line is this: if these people were average (i.e. not wealthy), there would be nothing to write about or to see here, folks. This film shows how personal dysfunction magnifies the excesses of wealth. After all, having wealth isn't a problem until wealth (or just the same, acute lack of it) has you. I hope this mom gets a grip on boundaries and core worth and value or these kids are gonna end up having a very difficult transition to real world adulthood. Other than that and the bad-ass dad's workaholism, these people seem pretty normal to me ("normal" meaning "somewhat dysfunctional" just like the rest of us schmucks without a gazillion dollars). The most interesting aspect of this movie is to see this couple and family in the midst of identity crisis. As long as there's plenty of wealth, there is no crisis (hence the problem). For example, one really wonders why the mom bought that 100th kid bike at the supermarket. You later see the garage packed full of kids bikes and can't help but to realize that neither the mom's or dad's "relationship tool bag" is well stocked if yet another kid bike is really the answer to what woes. On the other hand, what family of 8 or 10 people, mostly children, doesn't have its fair share of child dereliction going on if the mom is a major enabler, or narcissist, or whatever her deal is? Along that line, I was actually surprised to see no shoes flushed down toilets or kid pranks gone too far. Dead lizard caused by a teen going through a snarky, spoiled phase in which she is too lazy or self-absorbed to water it? Meh, seems pretty normal. Maybe not every teen has let a hundred dollar lizard die of thirst, but hey, not every teen has had a hundred dollar lizard. Also, I thoroughly salute the people who made this film. It ended up being much better than if financial crisis hadn't hit. Guys like this dad will end up back on top, leaving eat-the-rich carpers of this world to hate away. People who think rich people should exhibit admirable qualities and good sense are only giving themselves an excuse to sit on the sidelines of life, waiting for the never-to-come day that they themselves are perfect and worthy and deserving enough for such wealth. Sure these people have their issues, but so does everybody else, and that's what I love about this film.